Provides corrections of a few popular myths about the history of the battles

1777

Tipping Point at Saratoga

Dean Snow

Description

In the autumn of 1777, near Saratoga, New York, an inexperienced and improvised American army led by General Horatio Gates faced off against the highly trained British and German forces led by General John Burgoyne. The British strategy in confronting the Americans in upstate New York was to separate rebellious New England from the other colonies. Despite inferior organization and training, the Americans exploited access to fresh reinforcements of men and materiel, and ultimately handed the British a stunning defeat. The American victory, for the first time in the war, confirmed that independence from Great Britain was all but inevitable.

Assimilating the archaeological remains from the battlefield along with the many letters, journals, and memoirs of the men and women in both camps, Dean Snow's 1777 provides a richly detailed narrative of the two battles fought at Saratoga over the course of thirty-three tense and bloody days. While the contrasting personalities of Gates and Burgoyne are well known, they are but two of the many actors who make up the larger drama of Saratoga. Snow highlights famous and obscure participants alike, from the brave but now notorious turncoat Benedict Arnold to Frederika von Riedesel, the wife of a British major general who later wrote an important eyewitness account of the battles. Snow, an archaeologist who excavated on the Saratoga battlefield, combines a vivid sense of time and place — with details on weather, terrain, and technology — and a keen understanding of the adversaries' motivations, challenges, and heroism into a suspenseful, novel-like account. A must-read for anyone with an interest in American history, 1777 is an intimate retelling of the campaign that tipped the balance in the American War of Independence.

1777

Tipping Point at Saratoga

Dean Snow

Table of Contents

Introduction Chapter 1: The OpeningChapter 2: The Battle of Freeman's FarmChapter 3: The Middle Game Chapter 4: The Battle of Bemis HeightsChapter 5: The End Game EpilogueBibliography Index

1777

Tipping Point at Saratoga

Dean Snow

Author Information

Dean Snow is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Penn State University and past president of the Society for American Archaeology. His previous books include Archaeology of Native North America and The Iroquois.

1777

Tipping Point at Saratoga

Dean Snow

Reviews and Awards

"Altogether 1777: Tipping Point at Saratoga is an excellent account of the battle that arguably insured American independence by encouraging French intervention, and worth a read by anyone with an interest in the Revolutionary War." -- A. A. Nofi, Strategy Page

"An exceptionally detailed narrative, following events day by day and, as the action intensifies, hour by hour. This chronological structure has the merit of making sense of a campaign for which the evidence is often complex and contradictory. The result is a vivid, almost novelistic, account."--Wall Street Journal

"[Dean Snow's] profiles of protagonists...bring the battle to life."--The New York Times

"As the action builds and the characters come into focus, readers will get caught up in their hopes and frustrations. Military history lovers will appreciate Snow's explanations of how battles are fought."--Kirkus Reviews

"In his latest book, Snow takes a magnifying glass to the Saratoga campaign....[He] presents Horatio Gates and John Burgoyne not as competing chess players but as complex individuals immersed in a larger group of individuals who struggle with social politics, ambiguous authority structures, and subordinates with mixed motives and loyalties....Snow's narrative keeps readers engaged, start to finish."--Library Journal

"An easy-reading and well-structured look at the battles that produced the British defeat."--Washington Free Beacon

"Dean Snow breathes new life into a story usually told simply in terms of troop movements, military strategy, and political aftermaths. Snow's account of the military aspects of this campaign is flawless, but it is his sensitivity to the emotional aspects that makes this book a must-read for all readers of the era. He takes us beyond the familiar statistics of the battlefield, beyond the strategic mistakes and successes, and beyond the political consequences of Burgoyne's surrender; he helps us see the meaning of this moment in the lives of the men and women who were there."--Carol Berkin, author of The Bill of Rights: The Fight to Secure America's Liberties

"Dean Snow has written a wonderful book, a veritable primer on how to write a history of a military campaign or battle. Snow's lucid and engrossing writing transports readers to the site of the pivotal collision between the British and American armies at Saratoga. Readers will understand the day-by-day dilemmas and decisions of the commanders and the daily lives of the men they commanded. So good is Snow's writing that readers may think they smell the scent of battle, feel shuddering bombardments, experience the heart-pounding sensations of men under fire, and agonize with the luckless wounded. 1777 is a very good book."--John Ferling, author of Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It

"Dean Snow's book 1777 offers a splendid account of the Saratoga campaign. Its reconstruction of the battles focuses on more than strategy, tactics, and military forces-indeed, it gives an extraordinary account of the actions of the armies, not just day by day, but hour by hour. Just as impressive in the book's coverage are the stories it offers of participants-common soldiers of both armies, their officers, and many of the families that took part, sometimes in the action itself. Both armies receive careful and detailed attention, thereby making this account balanced and fair-minded in every respect."--Robert Middlekauff, author of Washington's Revolution: The Making of America's First Leader

"As the action builds and the characters come into focus, readers will get caught up in their hopes and frustrations... [and] military history lovers will appreciate Snow's explanations of how battles are fought."--Kirkus Reviews

"In his latest book, Snow takes a magnifying glass to the Saratoga campaign... [He] presents Horatio Gates and John Burgoyne not as competing chess players but as complex individuals immersed in a larger group of individuals who struggle with social politics, ambiguous authority structures, and subordinates with mixed motives and loyalties... Snow's narrative keeps readers engaged, start to finish."--Library Journal

"Borrowing from a rich storehouse of letters and diaries preserved by families and historian/aficionados, Snow creates an indelible image of what it was like to be in a campaign that forever changed the soldiers and the land they lived on."--Electric Review

"An exceptionally detailed narrative, following events day by day and, as the action intensifies, hour by hour. This chronological structure has the merit of making sense of a campaign for which the evidence is often complex and contradictory. The result is a vivid, almost novelistic, account."--Wall Street Journal

"An easy-reading and well-structured look at the battles that produced the British defeat."--Washington Free Beacon

[Dean Snow's] accounts of the battles are downright exciting....[his] descriptions of such actions are as fine as I have ever encountered."--Journal of the American Revolution

"An excellent and detailed account."--H-Net

"Dean Snow has opened a unique perspective on the 'momentous culmination' of the decisive Saratoga Campaign by highlighting the human dimension of combat. 1777: Tipping Point at Saratoga warrants the serious reflection of all students and scholars of the American Revolutionary War."--Michigan War Studies Review

"The American victory at Saratoga has been the subject of literally dozens of books. Dean Snow's 1777 is among the best."--CHOICE Reviews

"Dean Snow's narrative is a faithful and meticulous chronicle, ably interweaving a rich tapestry of first-hand accounts with detailed descriptions of the battle's geography, planning and execution. What follows is a panoramic of the issues, personalities and events that culminated in the great American victory of the early Revolution."--Jack Tracey, History

1777

Tipping Point at Saratoga

Dean Snow

From Our Blog

Conspiracies are seldom what they are cracked up to be. It is in their nature for people to gossip and complain. Through it all they sometimes agree with each other, or pretend to for other reasons. Thus eavesdroppers looking for conspiracy can imagine plenty of it in almost any gathering, particularly if alcohol is lubricating and amplifying the discussions. So it was that in the winter of 1777-78 that some commonplace military griping got elevated to the level of conspiracy, at the center of which were a few hapless men later referred to as the 'Conway Cabal.'